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Mar 09, 2024

How the New ‘Mission: Impossible’ Movie Replicated the Orient Express

Rachel Cormack Only one of Hollywood’s biggest action franchises could get away with wrecking the Orient Express. The brave minds behind Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One decided to crash

Rachel Cormack

Only one of Hollywood’s biggest action franchises could get away with wrecking the Orient Express.

The brave minds behind Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One decided to crash the iconic train right to the bottom of a gorge in the film’s final thrilling action sequence. Fortunately, it wasn’t the 19th-century original that ended up hurtling off a cliff but a detailed replica.

“We had to build the train if we wanted to destroy it,” the film’s director, co-writer, and producer Christopher McQuarrie said in a short behind-the-scenes documentary shared by Paramount Pictures on YouTube.

The crew actually built three working replicas of the luxurious locomotive, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. The trio had to evoke all the Art Deco elegance of the original Orient Express. For the unversed, the rolling hotel is a picture of old-world opulence with glossy wood paneling, elegant brass fittings, and plush upholstery. The lookalikes also had to feature the same carriages, including the bar car, the restaurant car, and the kitchen.

Most importantly, the replicas had run on a working railroad seamlessly and safely enough that the actors and stunt doubles could fight on the roof at speeds of 60 miles an hour. Tom Cruise, who is back as highly skilled field agent Ethan Hunt in the seventh flick, can be spotted fighting actor Esai Morales atop the train in the two-minute YouTube clip.

“I’ve done fight scenes, but to do them on a moving train, it was trial by fire,” adds Morales, who plays antagonist Gabriel in the film. “That’s how Tom likes to do things.”

Cruise and his co-star Hayley Atwell, who portrays elusive pickpocket Grace in the new blockbuster, can also be seen scrambling through the cars as the train nosedives into a quarry. The runaway train sequence serves as a metaphor for the characters’ experience at large—that is, good people trying to evade inevitable disaster (a runaway train).

It’s not the only bonkers scene in the upcoming Mission: Impossible, either. Cruise also drives a motorcycle off a cliff in what has been labeled the biggest stunt in cinema history. No doubt it’s a metaphor for something, too.